How did conflict between Israel and Iran start?

[CapelDodger]

Obfuscation ignored.

Not obfuscation but an attempt to explain something which is clearly not obvious enough to you. You could no more say who spoke for Iran in 1979 than you can say who speaks for Egypt today. The common feature is an unresolved revolution.

Of course they did, and they still do!

http://home.mindspring.com/~a.lo/20080310IranIsraelWiped01.jpg

http://home.mindspring.com/~a.lo/20080310IranIsraelWiped02.jpg

http://home.mindspring.com/~a.lo/zluhig.jpg

Repetition is not an argument.

And as I already pointed out, almost immediately after the revolution Iran started training, funding, and arming proxy armies to attack Israel while their own secret agencies pulled off terrorism of their very own, like the Argentine Jewish Center bombing.

Almost immediately after the revolution Iran was in a major war and having difficulty arming itself, let alone anybody else. The bombings in Argentina were in the 90's and are often referred to, often enough to suggest that they aren't really evidence of repeated Iranian outrages.

It's also taken for granted that these incidents have been fully exposed, and that a monolithic Iranian government ordered them from the top. The political situation there has never quite solidifed, and there's a big problem with the Revolutionary Guards. In that particular case we do have an overlap between warmongering and an army; chains of command are tenuous, corruption is rife, factions are inevitable.

So I'll ask the question again, though I'm fully aware you won't have the courage or intellectual honesty to answer it: Was Israel "worked up" about Iran prior to Iran declaring Israel must be destroyed (way back in 1979) and funding terrorist armies to further that aim?

No such declaration having been made in 1979 your question is, of course, meaningless. As for the "terrorist armies", Hamas was established in the 80's on Arab money, not Iranian, and Hezbollah was hardly going to destroy Israel in South Lebanon. The Iranian efforts in this direction appear to have been pretty half-assed, but more likely are non-existent.

Do you have the intellectual capacity to deal with that?

 

[WildCat]

No such declaration having been made in 1979 your question is, of course, meaningless.

Nonsense, I've already proven it. In fact Khomenei's declarations against Israel go all the way back to his exile in France in the 1960s.

As for the "terrorist armies", Hamas was established in the 80's on Arab money, not Iranian,

Iran has been their main sponsor for many years, hundreds of millions of dollars have flowed from Iran to Hamas, weapons too. The RG even trains them.

and Hezbollah was hardly going to destroy Israel in South Lebanon.

So? That means Israel shouldn't get "worked up" about it?

The Iranian efforts in this direction appear to have been pretty half-assed, but more likely are non-existent.

So now you're denyiong Iran funds Hezbollah?

Do you have the intellectual capacity to deal with that?

Oh, I can deal well enough with the constant stream of lies and revisionist history with the knee-jerk anti-Israel people who are never, ever motivated by anti-semitism.

 

[CapelDodger]

chosen

Take it either way you wish it. You're swinging around the DOB, not me.

I'll take it, then, that you didn't pay any attention to Iran before the revolution, and any comments you make about it are based entirely on supposition.

I do find it entertaining that you somehow think you have the one up on me with direct experience simply because you witnessed this on a box in realtime.

Your imagination has summoned up this impression of me and, comfortable with that image, you have made it your reality.

Then proceed to feel insulted that this is questioned, then continue to insult others that somehow their knowledge of history is merely based on some sort of biblical-era story.

I did nothing of the sort. That may be what you took away from it, but only because it's one of the things you went there looking for.

Comedy.

Almost tragic.

Hoopla as in your revisionist interpretation of history without one iota of evidence to back it up.

I'm not a revisionist.

I said bigger chance. Case and point, a revolution in 1979 overthrew the shah. The most recent 'revolution' in Iran met with absolutely nothing.

So by "his reign was a bigger chance at an actual democracy than what followed post-79" you weren't suggesting that a revolution wouldn't have been necessary. You meant his regime was more fragile than the current one, and I agree. That's why repression of suspected democrats (aka "subversives") was getting cranked-up right to the end. Then the Shah ran away, as he was always prone to do.

So an arms embargo that didn't come to fruition. The only ones affected was Israel, whilst the Arabs were getting their arms without difficulty. Right.

Completely wrong. The Arabs of Palestine had been disarmed after the Arab Rebellion in 1936, while the very recently independent Arab states had been left with British and French equipment, reliant on them for parts and ammunition - which were embargoed. It was just like the Spanish Civil War or the Bosnian conflict, a one-sided embargo by the international forum of the day.

The French mostly took over.

Only for planes and accessories. It's hard to imagine anybody buying a French tank. By the early 80's Israel was exporting weapons, and it's a major industry today. It has always been a Zionist policy to become strategically self-reliant, and given its peculiar circumstances it's easy to understand why.

Nope. The British left a number of fortresses, which are mostly museums today, with arms inside of them (in addition to the ones that British provided to them), to the Arabs.

Fortresses? You intrigue me : where were these fortresses?

No it wasn't. The Iraqis in the north were held off by Napoleonic era cannons. Which is comedy.

Sounds impossible, doesn't it? How on earth did they manage to smuggle Napoleonic era cannon past the embargo, and why?

Has it ever occurred to you that this story is questionable?

The Arabs within the mandate area were mostly behind Mufti al-Huesseni, who was pro-Axis.

The Arabs within the mandate area were never asked what they thought of the Mufti, who was pro-Mufti. He was appointed by the British because he was a political operator. The Arabs in Palestine at the time (as you've pointed out yourself) had no group-identity, and they mostly just went about their business with no care for politics beyond their various communities. Ottomans, British, bloody Persians for that matter, it was all the same to them.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, for example, were mostly pro-Allied.

I rather doubt they had any opinion on the European conflict. Not everything that happened in the world between 1939 and 1945 was about the Axis and the white folk.

As for the anti-Zionist drivel, find it quite peculiar to see such massive increases in Arab population to where Jews settled in the mid 19th century onwards.

You didn't actually see it, did you? You've been told about it, no doubt, but it's odd that nobody noticed this Arab migration at the time. Perhaps the Jewish settlement was just part of the population increase, not in any way a cause of it? Have you asked yourself that question?

Fact of the matter is there was going to be a Jewish homeland and the Arabs wanted it entirely to themselves.

The foundation of a Jewish Homeland was dependent on a string of conincidences and was by no means inevitable, let alone in Palestine. The people who already lived there wanted to keep it : is that so wrong?

Instead of trying to find a solution, which Israel sought, the Arabs chose war after war. And what do you think the result of losing so many wars would result in? How do you think nation-building happened?

I know how nations are built, and it's a bloody business. Some nations just grow, but Zionists chose the building route. It was all the rage in 19thCE Europe, but look where that got us.

Israel had to be built in war and everybody knew it. What not everybody saw was that Israel would have to exist in a state of war because it is too artificial to survive introspection.

The "war after war" presumably means 1967 and 1973, after which agreement was reached with Egypt and Syrian approaches were ignored - Syria was the only existential threat available, Iraq not having featured yet. Iraq took centre-stage with the Kuwait invasion and Syria faded; Hezbollah was being a real pain in South Lebanon but it's hard to inspire fear with that. The solution was to pull out, of course.

You assure me, haha. Nice one.

You question my authority, and that's a good thing. Consider now that in 1967 Israel was on our side and Nasser was involved. Who do you think the common man cheered for?

This airlift of munitions occurred, reluctantly I might add, in the last week of the war, after the US administration during that time sat on the intel of the Arab invasion of 1973.

During the war, as I said. As to your belief that the US knew what was about to happen, including the oil embargo which was intimately connected, and concealed it from Israel at the risk of losing it's strategic foothold in the Levant to the greater glory of the Soviet-backed leaders of Egypt and Syria ... I'll make no further comment. On the face of it it's ridiculous.

The truth is the US was just as surpised as Israel. Just as they both were in Iran in 1979.

Neither do I care about arguing revisionist drivel with you. Business makes these relations

I've noticed how little you care about argument. It appears that you've been presented with a view of history which you've never examined, a narratve you're comfortable with. I've never been comfortable with that way of thinking myself.

 

[CapelDodger]

Nonsense, I've already proven it.

No you haven't. You've referred to a book promoting fear of anti-semitism.

In fact Khomenei's declarations against Israel go all the way back to his exile in France in the 1960s.

Nobody in the Middle East has a good word for Israel (why would they?), but as a representation of European colonialism. Anti-Zionism is not anti-semitism, it is anti-colonialism.

Iran has been their main sponsor for many years, hundreds of millions of dollars have flowed from Iran to Hamas, weapons too.

Now that is revisionism. Are you quite sure of your sources?

The RG even trains them.

That may well be true, but Hamas has little to learn given its wealth of experience. They have been forged in the war they've fought, just as Hezbollah has been.

So? That means Israel shouldn't get "worked up" about it?

Yes. Had Hezbollah followed the Israelis across the border then it should concern them, but it didn't. How is that supposed to "destroy Israel"?

You call Hezbollah "terrorists" because they chased the Israelis out of South Lebanon and you find that distasteful.

So now you're denyiong Iran funds Hezbollah?

Of course I'm not. Why shouldn't Iran fund Hezbollah anyway? Calling them "terrorists" does not constitute an answer.

Oh, I can deal well enough with the constant stream of lies and revisionist history with the knee-jerk anti-Israel people who are never, ever motivated by anti-semitism.

Exposing your need for anti-semitism and the ever-present existential threat.

Have you ever considered life without that need?

 

[WildCat]

No you haven't. You've referred to a book promoting fear of anti-semitism.

So? Would you like a different source, there's plenty available.

Nobody in the Middle East has a good word for Israel (why would they?), but as a representation of European colonialism. Anti-Zionism is not anti-semitism, it is anti-colonialism.

Wow, so please explain: which country is doing the colonizing?

Now that is revisionism. Are you quite sure of your sources?

Quite.

That may well be true, but Hamas has little to learn given its wealth of experience. They have been forged in the war they've fought, just as Hezbollah has been.

Do you agree that for many years Iran funded, armed, and trained Hamas?

Yes. Had Hezbollah followed the Israelis across the border then it should concern them, but it didn't. How is that supposed to "destroy Israel"?

Hezbollah has attacked Israel on numerous occasions, shooting mortars and missiles into Israel and then there's the occasional kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. But nothing to get "worked up" over, eh? After all, they can't actually destroy Israel!

You call Hezbollah "terrorists" because they chased the Israelis out of South Lebanon and you find that distasteful.

I call them terrorists because they attack civilians and violate just about every law of armed conflict.

Of course I'm not. Why shouldn't Iran fund Hezbollah anyway? Calling them "terrorists" does not constitute an answer.

Yeah, why shouldn't Iran spend hundreds of millions of dollars attacking by proxy a country which it has no interests in and posed no threat to it?

And I note you still can't admit that Israel didn't get all "worked up" about Iran until Iran began attacking Israel. And of what interest is Israel to Iran again?

Exposing your need for anti-semitism and the ever-present existential threat.

A nuclear Iran is certainly an existential threat to Israel, but you are contending that anything short of an existential threat is no reason to get "worked up"?

Have you ever considered life without that need?

I have no such need. It appears that you, however, have a need to believe that other countries should be allowed to attack Israel at their leisure, without Israel getting "worked up", because it's all cool so long as it isn't an existential threat! I wonder if this is your standard for any countries that aren't officially a Jewish refugee state? Did you decry the UK getting "worked up" over the IRA because the IRA wasn't an existential threat to the UK, for example?

 

[CapelDodger]

So? Would you like a different source, there's plenty available.

Set a few up.

Wow, so please explain: which country is doing the colonizing?

Israel is the colony.

Quite.

Have you cross-checked them?

Do you agree that for many years Iran funded, armed, and trained Hamas?

They have provided funds, but for arms you have to look closer to home, and the majority of Hamas's funds have always come from Gulf Arabs. As to training, what can the Iranians teach them? What experience do the Iranians have which Hamas could profit from? Hamas, on the other hand, have a lot to teach people about asymmetric warfare. Something the Egyptian Army is no doubt very aware of.

Hezbollah has attacked Israel on numerous occasions, shooting mortars and missiles into Israel and then there's the occasional kidnapping of Israeli soldiers.

That would be the one capture of an Israeli soldier, and not actually in Israel. The rocket attacks followed the usual Israeli response (bombing and shelling) and were a response, not an attack.

Since then nothing. Not from Israel and not from Hezbollah.

But nothing to get "worked up" over, eh? After all, they can't actually destroy Israel!

Indeed they can't. They can stop South Lebanon going the way of the West Bank, though, and have demonstrated it.

I call them terrorists because they attack civilians and violate just about every law of armed conflict.

You call them terrorists because they drove Israel out of South Lebanon, demonstrated the myth of Israeli invincibility in 2006, and they're still there. In South Lebanon. Not Israel.

Yeah, why shouldn't Iran spend hundreds of millions of dollars attacking by proxy a country which it has no interests in and posed no threat to it?

How is supporting resistance to Israeli occupation in South Lebanon attacking Israel? I know there are some who believe Israel is entitled to South Lebanon and was betrayed by the British in the Sykes-Picot agreement but they're a fairly quiet minority today. Begin, Shamir and Sharon all believed it but two of them are dead and one might as well be. That's not to say the claim won't re-emerge if the West Bank ever does get fully integrated into the State.

And I note you still can't admit that Israel didn't get all "worked up" about Iran until Iran began attacking Israel.

Israel has only got worked-up about Iran since they've given up on Syria as a credible existential threat. With Egypt, the PLO, Syria and Iraq all out of the picture they had to cast the net wider, and all of a sudden Iran was the existential threat and always had been. Hezbollah used to be blamed on Syria back in the 80's, but that history has been revised.

And of what interest is Israel to Iran again?

A government has to take account of a nuclear-armed and proudly proactive state making almost daily threats against them.

Apart from that, Israel is an icon of Western Imperialism in the Middle East. Enabled by the British and suckled by the US. A victory over Israel is a proxy-victory over that whole phase of history. Now that experience is fading (but was very fresh in the 40's and 50's) so politicians make the right noises to keep the street happy but they don't roll tanks any more. To save the Palestinians? Hardly.

A nuclear Iran is certainly an existential threat to Israel, but you are contending that anything short of an existential threat is no reason to get "worked up"?

A nuclear Iran is not an existential threat to Israel. You might nuke the Holy Land even if it was downwind, but a Muslim government which wants to wake up to a few more mornings won't.

Relax. Israel can nuke Iran from upwind and be safe from a retaliatory strike. Except possibly from China (which is downwind, not Muslim, and likely to feel aggrieved).

There is no existential threat to Israel or the Jews of the disapora. They really don't matter that much.

There is an existential threat to the Jewish State, and that lies in the long-postponed (due to ever-present existential threats, it's just one after another) debate about what a Jewish State actually is.

I have no such need. It appears that you, however, have a need to believe that other countries should be allowed to attack Israel at their leisure, without Israel getting "worked up", because it's all cool so long as it isn't an existential threat! I wonder if this is your standard for any countries that aren't officially a Jewish refugee state? Did you decry the UK getting "worked up" over the IRA because the IRA wasn't an existential threat to the UK, for example?

If Israel is to you a "Jewish refugee state" there are a lot of Israelis who'd disagree with you. Israel is not a bolt-hole, it is an amazing construction that owes nothing to people running scared. It was a disastrous project from the start, as so many people said at the time, but there it is. A magnificent experiment.

If we Brits had got as worked-up over the IRA as Israel does at any opportunity we'd have bombed Dublin from the air. There's never been a moment when Israel hasn't had a current existential threat, and history is revised to fit the latest. Israel needs the existential threat, and at the same time needs to tell diaspora Jews how terribly dangerous their lives are. It all looks pretty tragic from the outside.

 

[Giz]

If we Brits had got as worked-up over the IRA as Israel does at any opportunity we'd have bombed Dublin from the air. There's never been a moment when Israel hasn't had a current existential threat, and history is revised to fit the latest. Israel needs the existential threat, and at the same time needs to tell diaspora Jews how terribly dangerous their lives are. It all looks pretty tragic from the outside.

If the military wing of the democratically elected government of Ireland had launched thousands of rockets into UK territory and refused to stop... quite possibly the UK would have bombed Dublin (or somewhere else in Eire).

IMHO Israel shows a lot of restraint.

 

[bigjelmapro]

I'll take it, then, that you didn't pay any attention to Iran before the revolution, and any comments you make about it are based entirely on supposition.
...
Your imagination has summoned up this impression of me and, comfortable with that image, you have made it your reality.
...
I did nothing of the sort. That may be what you took away from it, but only because it's one of the things you went there looking for.

Hapless attempts at trolling. Continue with this line I don't much care. It simply makes you look pompous and illogical.

Completely wrong. The Arabs of Palestine had been disarmed after the Arab Rebellion in 1936, while the very recently independent Arab states had been left with British and French equipment, reliant on them for parts and ammunition - which were embargoed. It was just like the Spanish Civil War or the Bosnian conflict, a one-sided embargo by the international forum of the day.

Based on what? The British provided arms to the ALA years up to the 1948 war. Even if you follow this strange logic of yours, how can one be disarmed and remain disarmed for over a decade before the 1948 war? Magic?

Throwing in a strawman won't help you. The only ones who endured this supposed embargo were the Jews, from the Haganah to the Irgun.

Only for planes and accessories. It's hard to imagine anybody buying a French tank. By the early 80's Israel was exporting weapons, and it's a major industry today. It has always been a Zionist policy to become strategically self-reliant, and given its peculiar circumstances it's easy to understand why.

We were taking about planes smuggled in, ie the Czechs. Israel bought surplus from WWII and smuggled it in in pieces usually. Not the case with Arabs. More weapons, more up-to-date.

Fortresses? You intrigue me : where were these fortresses?

Not surprised: Tegart fort. A number of them throughout present day Israel, the sheer majority in the hands of Arabs pre-1948.

Sounds impossible, doesn't it? How on earth did they manage to smuggle Napoleonic era cannon past the embargo, and why?

Has it ever occurred to you that this story is questionable?

As opposed to smuggling in planes, in pieces. Sure.

The Arabs within the mandate area were never asked what they thought of the Mufti, who was pro-Mufti. He was appointed by the British because he was a political operator. The Arabs in Palestine at the time (as you've pointed out yourself) had no group-identity, and they mostly just went about their business with no care for politics beyond their various communities. Ottomans, British, bloody Persians for that matter, it was all the same to them.

You expecting a PEW poll?

The majority of Arabs within the mandate area during the time pre-modern Israel identified themselves as Syrians, Egyptians, and Saudis. Just look at their surnames.

I rather doubt they had any opinion on the European conflict. Not everything that happened in the world between 1939 and 1945 was about the Axis and the white folk.

So not all about Israel, and now not all about the 'white folk'.

You didn't actually see it, did you? You've been told about it, no doubt, but it's odd that nobody noticed this Arab migration at the time. Perhaps the Jewish settlement was just part of the population increase, not in any way a cause of it? Have you asked yourself that question?

Sure. Apparently you're the only one that has access to books.

As we can well see with the other ingenius post of yours, Israel is a colony in your eyes. So not much more to talk about there.

The foundation of a Jewish Homeland was dependent on a string of conincidences and was by no means inevitable, let alone in Palestine. The people who already lived there wanted to keep it : is that so wrong?

Not a prerequisite for nation-building, sorry.

I know how nations are built, and it's a bloody business. Some nations just grow, but Zionists chose the building route. It was all the rage in 19thCE Europe, but look where that got us.

Building is less bloodier.

Israel had to be built in war and everybody knew it. What not everybody saw was that Israel would have to exist in a state of war because it is too artificial to survive introspection.
...

No. Arab rejectionism led to war.

I've noticed how little you care about argument. It appears that you've been presented with a view of history which you've never examined, a narratve you're comfortable with. I've never been comfortable with that way of thinking myself.

No. I just don't care for revisionism and this strangely, fallacy filled, circular logic of yours regarding nation-/state-building. Use of terms colony, artificial, terrorist in scare quotes when talking about Hezbollah, and so on. Its just sad.

One of the strangest, and contradictory. You gloat about seeing the Iran 1979 revolution take place in 'real-time' on that tv box you had back in the day, but somehow choose to dictate to those who actually partook in the 2006 Lebanon war about what actually happened.

Again, pure comedy. Yes, quite possibly tragic. See a doctor.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Can we get back to Israel and Iran? There have been a few good points tossed back and forth on that, but the usual drivel pro and con Israel has once again taken over.

Clayton, I'd nominate you for a Poe award if I thought it would get a laugh.

MaGZ, at least you remain consistent.

For those attacking Capel Dodger personally, stop. I've been reading his stuff on various sub-forums here since about 2006. He's reasonably well versed in matters political and strategic, and a bit on military and history.

We don't always agree, and we see the world through slightly different lenses, but to lump him into Clayton's ilk is FREAKIN' WRONG!

Work his points, and disagree where you feel he's wrong. Fencing with Capel can be good fun.

 

[Virus]

I've been reading his stuff on various sub-forums here since about 2006. He's reasonably well versed in matters political and strategic, and a bit on military and history.

He denies Iran sponsors regional terrorist organizations. This is Iranian foreign policy 101.

 

[bigjelmapro]

...
For those attacking Capel Dodger personally, stop. I've been reading his stuff on various sub-forums here since about 2006. He's reasonably well versed in matters political and strategic, and a bit on military and history.

We don't always agree, and we see the world through slightly different lenses, but to lump him into Clayton's ilk is FREAKIN' WRONG!

Work his points, and disagree where you feel he's wrong. Fencing with Capel can be good fun.

And to lump those who lump Capel Dodger into Clayton?

Worked on his points. Its a bit more detailed arm-chair warrior drivel, but as Virus has touched up on, his views on Israel being a colony (extension of what?) and masquerading Hezbollah as some sort of resistence force is being utterly disingenuous. Period.

You can read Capel for another 10 years, it wouldn't change the monstrous holes in his interpretation of historical events in any way, regardless if he's a bit older than me or not, albeit with less first-hand experience in actual war. Wikipedia and sitting in front of the tv can do only so much.

 

[Giz]

For those attacking Capel Dodger personally, stop. I've been reading his stuff on various sub-forums here since about 2006. He's reasonably well versed in matters political and strategic, and a bit on military and history.

We don't always agree, and we see the world through slightly different lenses, but to lump him into Clayton's ilk is FREAKIN' WRONG!

Work his points, and disagree where you feel he's wrong. Fencing with Capel can be good fun.

Just my 2 cents: Capel certainly does have a great deal of knowledge it's just that he interprets that knowledge in a rather bizarre way.

I remember a James I/VI quote "the wisest fool in Christendom" that might be appropriate. (No doubt James was a good debating partner too).

 

[Clayton Moore]

Israel hugging at it's finest. You all deserve the Bernard Lawrence Madoff "Who Me?" Award.

 

[trustbutverify]

Admit it, you love Israel.

 

[bigjelmapro]

Back to the CT holocaust denial thread buddy. You're doing so great there....